New Telegraph

Shipping lines corner clearing jobs at Nigerian ports

Moves by multinational shipping lines to gradually dislodge Nigerian freight forwarders from cargoe clearance at the nation’s seaports is causing fears among stakeholders. Already, it was estimated that no fewer than 1,000 local firms face closure in Kenya as a result of the subtle incursion from the multinational shipping lines. It was reported that the 1,000 local firms’ closure translates to over 10,000 jobs that are on the line, according to the Kenya International Freight and Warehousing Association (KIFWA).

A freight forwarder and former President of National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), Dr. Eugene Nweke, disclosed to our correspondent that in the past one year, most of the multinational shipping lines operating in Nigeria had incorporated local imports clearance desks to handle their cargoes and logistics activities across the ports. The idea, according to Nweke, was to ensure that they handle most of the clearing jobs involving consignments brought to Nigeria. To ensure that they succeed, the former NAGAFF boss said that Nigerian importers were currently being lobbied to sign up end-to-end logistics services with them. With this arrangement, Nweke pointed out that importers would simply accord the clearing right to the shipping lines as soon as the goods arrive Nigerian shores.

However, the implication of this move, according to him, was that Nigerian freight forwarders may have no jobs or limited jobs to handle as far as clearing services were concerned. He disclosed further that some of the shipping lines were even threatening the importers to sign up the endto- end logistics services for obvious reasons. With this, the freight forwarder explained that the worst business practice appears to be evolving in the nation’s ports industry, making the multinational shipping lines to sideline and dislodge Nigerian freight forwarders from their professional practice of clearing goods. Nweke noted that this was what happened in Kenya where shipping lines were currently involved in clearing of goods for owners of cargoes they brought into that country.

He said: “It has become a common practice in our cargo clearance and logistics space for shipping lines to designate local imports clearance outfit (desk/unit) sending email or Whatsapp messages asking your clients to allow them clear and deliver the consignment to their warehouses at a most considerate cost and speed.

Initially, this is a common practice with groupage importation, but has since migrated to the full container load (FCL) importations. “The port scenario as at today shows that out of every 20 clearing firms, only five are directly having jobs and who sublet to another five agents, while the other 10 are without jobs.

They will always believe that jobs are scanty or that importation has reduced. Unfortunately, they never take time to ask, if job is truly too scanty, how come the Customs revenue are soaring and ships stemmed to all bonded terminals, without recourse? “My concern is sooner or later, as it is happening in Kenya, merger and acquisition will be a novel in our industry and by then the number of job losses would be unbelievable. In Kenya, neither the port economic regulator, nor the Shippers Council or the consumers regulatory agencies were able to stop the development due to the shipping lines’ stakes in merger and re-acquisitions. “I believe it is no longer story that between the practitioners and the designated imports clearance units that there is no form of level playing fields, they enjoy immediate cargo lifting from the ports for a later financial reconciliations and are also accorded reasonable preference even among most of the Customs operational area commands on ground of corporate status.

“However, the bigger concern is the freight forwarders’ participation and break-even in the on-going AfCTA implementation regime, especially so in the face of possible merger and acquisition.” Nweke said that the biggest problem now was that freight forwarders were currently divided and therefore would be ill-equipped to fight against this scenario. He feared that the shipping lines may resort sponsoring more crisis among the customs agents associations to remain divided on common issues and therefore unable to come fight them. He added: “The ugly situation being that the freight forwarding associations are still divided along nomenclature ground while the oldest association, ANLCA is still neck dip in leadership crisis.” Nweke said that time had come for all freight forwarders to do everything to unite to be able to fight a common course. “The need to make haste while the sun shines cannot be over emphasized,” he said. In the case of Kenya, it was gathered that clearing firms were currently suffering risk of closure as shipping lines are now involved in clearing for importers in that country.

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